


give all this and heaven too

by KmacKatie (kmackatie)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Cerberus Assembly (Critical Role), Emotional realisations, Feelings, First Kiss, Future Fic, M/M, More plot than I expected, Political Intrigue, Quana Kryn is badass and I would die for her, Realisation of feelings, Shadowgast, because what a bomb ass spell with far too many potentialities, catch the threads I might weave into a sequel if you can, declarations of love via creative spell usage, kind of hurt/comfort?, not today satan not today, summaries are hard, tether essence, there's yearning, this is really 5k of self indulgence around the tether essence spell, will I use capital letters in the title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 07:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28347378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmackatie/pseuds/KmacKatie
Summary: Essek draws out the spool of platinum cord from his component pouch. He loops it around his own wrist before catching Caleb’s wrist and repeating the motion. Caleb blinks, staring down at the wire before meeting Essek’s gaze again. Essek feels him start to tug his hand out, and tightens his grip.“Do you trust me?”“I—” Caleb starts, before breaking off, his blue eyes wide.“Do you trust me?” he repeats, more urgently this time. He has only moments before the door behind him will burst open.———In which Essek teaches Caleb the practical application oftether essence.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 36
Kudos: 310





	give all this and heaven too

**Author's Note:**

> Title form All This and Heaven Too by Florence and the Machine
> 
> This came out of a discussion on the ETFC around the potentiality of the tether essence spell from The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, and kind of spiralled from there. 
> 
> Thank you to [Sangreal](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Sangreal/pseuds/Sangreal) and [talesofsymphoniac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talesofsymphoniac/pseuds/talesofsymphoniac) for the beta read on this one.

————————

_tether essence_

7th level [c] - dunamancy [V,S,M*]  
casting time - 1 action  
duration - 1 hour  
* - (a spool of platinum cord worth at least 250 gp, which the spell consumes)

————————

He gets the information when it’s almost too late. He’s halfway down the dais steps, the second last one to leave the throne room when he realises just what it was that the Dusk Captain had said. 

_The Mighty Nein have taken out the Archmage of Antiquities and look to be going after the rest of the Cerberus Assembly._

He whips back around, head turning as his ear twitches.

“What did you say?”

Quana looks up in surprise, confusion crossing her face as Essek’s feet touch the ground of the throne room for the first time in decades. He’s not sure what’s showing on his face, but Quana’s confusion turns to an inkling of understanding and then realisation. 

The Bright Queen glances up from the papers she is bent over, and seeing the look on her partner’s face, she straightens. 

“Shadowhand. You were dismissed.”

“I beg forgiveness, My Queen,” he says hurriedly with a half nod of his head. He knows it’s borderline impertinent and just hopes this is a day where Leylas is willing to be lenient. “Dusk Captain, the information on the Nein. How recent was this?”

Quana considers a moment, and Essek can’t help but feel like he is being tested. He doesn’t care, already mentally running through his prepared spells for the day, hand darting to his component pouch to pull out a piece of copper wire.

“The report just came in. There should be a copy waiting for you?”

Essek breathes a sigh of relief. It’s recent, then. There’s a chance they are still alive, that they’ve only just started whatever this plan of theirs is. He turns, darting back down the steps. 

“Shadowhand Thelyss.”

The ringing command in the Bright Queen’s voice stops him dead in his tracks. He floats again on pure instinct, wincing slightly. He had forgotten himself and been far too transparent. Heart threatening to beat out of his chest, he takes a deep breath before turning back.

Quana is standing with her arms crossed, and her face is hard to read. Leylas’s however, is excruciatingly easy. There’s nothing forgiving in her icy gaze, and Essek can see the thick suspicion that lies there instead.

“The Mighty Nein have clearly chosen to return to the Empire, and are doing us a favour by reducing the number of Assembly members that we would have to contend with. They are to be, as per your own words, trusted in their judgements and decisions. I trust that has not changed?” Her voice was clipped, the words echoing through the open space. Dangerous. 

“It has not.” Essek’s voice is steady, years of training and experience not betraying any hint of the desperate emotion underneath. 

“Then what about this information would cause you to lose all sense and _walk_ out of this room with what I am guessing is intent to teleport to them? Do I need to question the objectivity of your attachment to these mercenaries?”

Essek’s eyes flick to Quana. Quana makes an infinitesimal shake of her head, barely a twitch, but there was warning in her eyes. Warning, and concern as she looked back to Leylas.

“No, My Queen. I had a professional interest only,” states Essek. “I was needing to quickly assign new orders to our operatives in Rexxentrum, to understand the outcome and motivation of this attack.”

He waits, hoping to pass her judgement. 

“You are forbidden from delivering those new orders in person. Do not leave this city, Shadowhand.”

He bows his head, betraying nothing on his face.

“Understood, My Queen.”

“Now leave. Captain, escort him out.”

Leylas turns from him, and Essek takes a breath. He nods again, moving at a steadier pace from the throne room. Quana follow him, and indicates for Essek to pause for a moment in the antechamber while the doors swing closed behind them. There’s a moment where they stand without speaking.

“Essek,” says Quana, her voice deliberately quiet in the space of the room. 

Essek, and not Shadowhand. He has always liked Quana for her razor-sharp perception and ability to think of a bigger picture.

“How long has she been questioning loyalties of those closest to her?” Essek asks, just as quiet.

“How long since yours have shifted?”

He blinks, and opens his mouth to reply before closing it, utterly unable to respond.

“ _Go_ , Essek,” Quana says, and Essek hears the duality in her comment. Hears the tacit permission that isn’t outright spoken in the careful phrasing. She knows that he had no intention of listening to Leylas’s command to stay. “Come and oversee the training of the new applicants for Taskhand tomorrow. We have much to discuss.”

Essek nods his thanks, heart pounding as he turns from the antechamber. He’s barely cleared the threshold of his office in the Lucid Bastion before his feet hit the ground and he’s shrugging off his mantle.

He strides over to his desk, and pauses as he pulls out a stack of paper from the draw. He’s looking for a specific sheet as he flicks through it. He knows it’s in here, having taken the notes from his tower a few weeks ago, and _ah._ There it is. A single page scrawled with notes and half-completed equations.

It’s Caleb’s, left behind after the _t_ _ransmogrification_ spell was complete. He rolls it up carefully, holding it in his left hand as he starts to draw with his right. Arcane glyphs flare up around him, centering on the token he is holding. With an incantation, he completes the spell and feels the _teleport_ take hold, and then the lurch as he shifts.

At first, he thinks it fails, until there’s a crack next to him and he darts sideways as the glass window next to him shatters.

There’s a huff of surprise, familiar, that he’s heard before, and Essek turns to see Caleb in the centre of a hallway, a look of confusion on his face and his hand crackling with the start of a spell.

“ _Essek_?” 

There’s a crack of lightning behind him and it’s instinct to throw up a shield spell while he darts forward, hand reaching out to grasp Caleb’s arm. Essek turns, eyes darting around as he takes in the destroyed hallway in front of him and a half-elven woman in red robes, more lightning crackling at her fingertip. He hears Caleb swear behind him, attempting to tug his arm loose, and it’s also instinct to raise a hand in an intricate motion and mutter an incantation. With a flash, the mage vanishes, and the brief moment as the _temporal shunt_ clicks into space allows Essek to drag Caleb through an open doorway.

Caleb hisses in pain, and Essek lets go immediately, concerned. There are more cuts than Essek would like across Caleb’s face and a dark patch on the side of his tunic that Essek is deliberately not thinking about. There is another crack of thunder against the wood of the door, and Essek knows he has precious few minutes before he is discovered.

“ _Scheisse_ , Essek, what are you doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here?” Essek replies, hand returning to press in against the stain on Caleb’s side. Caleb flinches underneath his hand and it’s red when he draws it back. “Where are the rest of the Nein?”

Caleb coughs weakly, and Essek refuses to think about what that could mean. Refuses to entertain a possibility where he may not survive this.

“Dealing with Da’leth. I’m going after Ikithon, there’s just been some uh, complications getting there.”

Essek draws out the spool of platinum cord from his component pouch. He loops it around his own wrist before catching Caleb’s wrist and repeating the motion. Caleb blinks, staring down at the wire before meeting Essek’s gaze again. Essek feels him start to tug his hand out, and tightens his grip.

“Do you trust me?”

“I—” Caleb starts, before breaking off, his blue eyes wide.

“ _Do you trust me_?” he repeats, more urgently this time. He has only moments before the door behind him will burst open.

There’s a pause as Caleb stills, hand burning in Essek’s grip. It feels like a lifetime. It’s a moment of open spellbooks, a purring cat in his lap, lips pressed to a forehead and a hand clasped on a shoulder. It’s sendings and research shared and a wonder of magic. Of teleports and tentative smiles, of broken faith and longing. It feels like a lifetime, but in reality it is fractions of a second.

Caleb nods his head.

In a flash, Essek’s hand whips up in the somatic gestures, and he utters a hurried incantation. There’s a pulse, and the platinum cord vanishes, sinking into their respective wrists. Essek rarely casts this spell, but he is familiar with the sensation. He’s familiar with the flare of warmth and the awareness that comes from the shadow of another’s emotions, of their physical hurt. Caleb’s energy level is worse than Essek thought, and Essek inhales sharply. Caleb’s eyes go wide, and the hand not already held by Essek shoots out to grasp his tunic. Essek is familiar with the sensation, the duality. Caleb isn’t.

As Caleb’s grip tightens, Essek doesn’t move. His own hand is still held loosely around Caleb’s wrist, and without thinking he brushes it. His own wrist sparks with a reflection of the energy, and Caleb flinches slightly, instinctually tugging them apart.

“ _Was_ —,” he starts, before shaking his head to clear it. “I can feel you.”

Essek nods.

“For the next hour, my health is your health. My strength is your strength. Any damage you take, I take,” he says, raw and honest, imploring Caleb to understand. He thinks he does, by the quick intake of breath and the shaking of his hand where it’s still gripping Essek’s tunic. “So. You stay alive Caleb Widogast. You _stay alive_ and come to me after. I… I wish I could do more. This is already another act of treason to add to my list.”

“ _Essek_.”

He isn’t sure what he detects in Caleb’s tone, and he doesn’t want to dissect it, doesn’t want to know what Caleb thinks of his latest selfish act. 

“You stay alive, and you _come back_ to me,” he repeats, desperation cracking his voice.

Before Caleb can respond, Essek steps forward. His hands come up to gently cradle Caleb’s face, and he presses a kiss to Caleb’s forehead. He feels the phantom kiss on his own forehead, real, and an echo of a memory from months past. Dropping a hand, he pulls a pearl from his pouch, drawing back and casting _fortune's favour_ in the same movement. Pressing the pearl against Caleb’s forehead, a pulse of energy flares indicating a successful casting.

With a splintering crash, the door finally gives way behind them, and Caleb is turning from him. He shoves Essek back and flings a hand out, fire crackling at his fingertips. Essek feels his heart leap into his throat, and everything is screaming at him to stay, to turn around and join the fray. But Caleb started this without him, and Essek knows he needs to finish it without him. He’s done as much as he can to ensure his safety.

He’s gasping as he completes the casting for _teleport_ , and he feels a secondary flicker of arcane energy from the connection with Caleb, hears the crackle of a second fireball before his own spell takes hold. With a familiar lurch, he’s back in his office, hand grasping onto the edge of his desk as his knees buckle under him.

It’s fainter, now, but the connection is still there. The ghost of a second heartbeat, adrenaline that isn’t his coursing through his veins. He collapses into the chair behind his desk, hand shaking as he goes to cast _sending_. It fails the first time, and he has to take a long moment, head tipping back as he forces himself to breathe, to steady his racing heart. There’s a flare of pain across his right shoulder and he hisses, crumpling slightly. It does nothing to help his heart, and actually has the opposite effect. His mind drags scenario after scenario up, each one more horrible than the last. It’s followed by a shallow cut opening on his palm, and a dull ache in the same shoulder.

He casts _sending_ again, and this time the glyphs flare successfully. He orders Uraya to bring him one of the Lens clerics and a few healing potions. He waits for the confirmation, and then he’s pulling off his tunic. He shivers slightly at the cool air hitting the bare skin of his arms, gossamer undershirt doing little to protect against the cold. Glancing down at his shoulder, he’s met with skin that he supposes would be bright red of a burn on a human, and on him is instead a silver sheen.

There’s a knock on his office door, and with a wave it floats open. Uraya and the cleric enter, and while Uraya’s footsteps falter slightly, neither comments on his appearance or asks any of the questions he can see burning in their eyes.

The cleric steps up first, silently asking permission which Essek grants with a nod. She reaches a hand out to his shoulder, slim fingers running over the skin, examining it briefly.

“Shadowhand,” she asks, voice gentle with respect. “What caused this injury?”

“Fire, I assume. Or lightning. I’m… not actually sure.”

“You don’t know?”

“It is not my injury.”

Her eyes flick down to his wrist, and there’s no further comment. Uraya is smart, and they brought the best. Essek asks, and they provide. It’s been a system that has been in place for years, and of all the people he works with, Uraya is more trusted than most.

The cleric’s hand returns to his shoulder, and there’s a flare of white light that she guides down onto his shoulder. Essek isn’t sure what healing is like from any other clerics, doesn’t think of what Jester’s or Caduceus’s might be like, but healing from a Luxon cleric is always cold. Like ice being applied and then drawn away. This time is no different.

Her hand retreats, and she steps back as he sighs in relief. He only hopes Caleb is feeling the same relief.

“Is that all—”

Essek yelps involuntarily, back arching up and he’s gasping for breath as a gaping wound opens itself up across his chest. He nearly blacks out from the pain, not used to sustaining physical injuries. How do the Nein do this on a regular basis?

“ _Suali_ ,” Uraya snaps, hand coming up to steady Essek in his chair and before they finish speaking she’s already there, both hands on Essek this time, patching the wound back up and stabilising him.

“How much longer?” Suali asks. She drops her satchel of healing supplies onto Essek’s desk, rifling through them for a compress and salve.

“Fifty minutes, give or take,” he replies weakly.

“I may need help—”

“No,” he interjects. “No one else can know.”

She eyes him, and Essek can feel the judgement in her gaze, but she is one of their most loyal clerics, and she knows how to do the task asked of her. She nods, dragging over one of the other chairs in the room and sitting down.

It’s a tense fifty minutes, broken by Essek’s hisses and intakes of breath as fresh wounds appear across his body, each one healed by Suali. Uraya stays standing, pacing in the back of the room and fetching whatever supplies Suali demands. Essek feels each and every flare of energy across his body and the pain that accompanies it. Feels the shadow of emotion and adrenaline that follows that is not his own. Compared to what Caleb would be going through, he knows this is nothing. He bears it gladly. Right as the spell is due to fizzle out, there’s a flare from his chest, of what Essek thinks is satisfaction, but before he can be sure, the connection is gone.

He’s alone.

He sighs, head dropping forward as a new type of exhaustion and weariness sets in. There are superficial scratches on his hands and arms, ones that Suali chose not to heal as she focused on the more urgent injuries. He just hopes it was enough.

Suali moves forward, reaching a hand out to Essek, and he leans back out of her touch.

“You have done more than enough, thank you.” There’s true gratitude in his tone, underneath the weariness. He can see the same weariness in her eyes, and he makes note to give her additional hours off. She has earned it.

Suali nods, and repacks her supplies before heading out the door, closing it gently behind her. Uraya approaches Essek, hesitating, before pouring a glass from a pitcher of water and handing it to him.

Essek murmurs his thanks, drinking deeply before sitting up straighter.

Uraya turns to leave, but they pause, turning back to Essek with a question in their eyes.

“Ask it, Uraya.”

“Who were you tethered to, Shadowhand?” comes the question. Their eyes flick again to Essek’s left wrist and the band of lighter skin that hasn’t completely returned to his natural dark purple.

Essek doesn’t respond, an answer in itself to someone who knows how to read between lines. Uraya is smart. They will work it out, once the reports start filtering in.

Uraya nods once, and leaves the room.

Essek takes a moment to examine his wrist, holding his left hand up and twisting it around, watching as the silver mark finally fades. He completely slumps back then, exhaustion getting the better of him as he lets his eyes flick closed.

Drow rarely sleep, most opting to trance for the convenience of it. Essek doesn’t intend to sleep, but his body clearly has other ideas. Without realising it, he slips into dreams. Confusing dreams, full of crackling fire and bolts of lighting, twisting corridors that morph and change before his eyes, and a figure in a purple coat and red hair, always just out of reach.

He’s shocked awake by a familiar voice eoching directly into his skull.

_Uh, Essek?_

He sits up with a groan, his back aching from where he had slumped in his chair. It takes a moment to realise that it is Jester contacting him via a _sending_.

 _Caleb_ _—_ _Caleb is asking after you. He says you should be able to find us? He’s out of spells and can’t get to—_

The _sending_ cuts out, Jester, as always, needing more words. He waits a moment, in case more is coming through. When nothing else arrives, he responds.

“Jester. I shall be there as soon as I can. Please tell C—” he breaks off, unsure of what he should say. “I’ll be there.”

He’s more weary than he’d like, and he only has one teleport left which means he will have to stay the night… wherever they are. He creates instructions for the Lens, and sends a note to Quana that he may be late to their meeting. Shrugging back into his tunic, he considers his mantle before ignoring it. He catches sight of himself in the dark window of his office, and pauses. He doesn’t know where the Nein currently are, though he has his suspicions, and a drow turning up unannounced in Rexxentrum may cause problems. With a quick _disguise self_ , he’s once again in the elven form of Desren Thane. One, because the Nein will know it’s him, and two, if the Cerberus Assembly has not fallen, they will also recognise him. 

Clutching the page of Caleb’s notes in his hands, he casts _teleport_. The arcane energy swirls around him, and the tugging sensation catches him, depositing him in an unfamiliar room.

Conversation cuts off as he lands, and there’s the hiss of weapons as he hurries to hold his hands up empty before him.

“ _E_ _—_ ” a voice starts, before cutting off. “Thane?”

He turns and is greeted by the sight of Beauregard, Caleb, Fjord, and two humans in red robes he doesn’t recognise standing before an intricate box on a desk, piles of paper around them. Beauregard was the one who spoke, and is staring at him now, eyebrow raised.

Essek’s gaze immediately slides to Caleb.

Caleb, who is _alive_ and _whole_.

Well. Mostly whole. His arm is bandaged and set in what looks like a makeshift sling. Frumpkin is in owl form on his shoulder, and there is a weariness on his face, which is littered with cuts and abrasions. Essek had hoped that he was okay, and getting this physical confirmation is almost more than he can take.

He misses the glance between Fjord and Beauregard, misses the way the other two humans straighten in confusion, glancing between him and Caleb; he misses all of it. He stares at Caleb, cataloguing every small movement, every twitch of a muscle.

“Let me speak with him,” Caleb murmurs to Beauregard, who initially protests before thinking better of it and instead herds the other two humans from the room.

They look reluctant to leave, protesting to the point where Beauregard grabs each of them by the shoulder and physically marches them from the room. Caleb stops Fjord as he moves to follow them.

“Are there any ears present?”

Fjord summons a sword, glances around for a moment, then shakes his head in confirmation. There’s a long moment of an unspoken conversation between them, and then Fjord is also leaving, and it’s just Essek and Caleb.

It’s still, and quiet, and the complete opposite of the chaos of their last meeting.

Essek doesn’t dare to move.

“Drop it, please,” says Caleb quietly, breaking the silence but not yet moving.

It takes Essek a moment to realise what Caleb means, and another moment to dispel the illusion.

There’s an intake of breath from Caleb, and then he is striding across the room, Frumpking fluttering off his shoulder and letting out a squawk in surprise. Essek can do nothing but stand there, transfixed by the intensity he can see in Caleb’s eyes. He stands there as Caleb crashes into him, and his arms wrap around him and pull him in close.

The scent of cloves, spell ink, and woodsmoke hits Essek’s nostrils as his own arms wrap around Caleb in return. Real. He’s real, and alive. Caleb doesn’t let him go, merely pulls him in closer and presses his face in against Essek’s neck. There are tears at his own eyes and a matching dampness on his shoulder.

“You're alive,” he breathes.

Caleb’s arms just wrap tighter in response.

“You’re _alive_.”

A hand snakes into his hair, rough fingers dragging through his undercut and weaving into the strands on top. Caleb is shaking in his arms, and Essek doesn’t let go.

“I’m alive, thanks to you,” Caleb murmurs into his neck. Essek’s ears twitch at the ghost of breath across them. “What _was_ that?”

Essek draws back slightly, hands shifting to cradle Caleb’s shoulders, and he feels Caleb draw back, one hand resting on his waist as the other stays in his hair.

“ _Tether essence_. It’s, ah, a dunamancy spell I haven’t gotten around to teaching you. Dangerous, but used in the right context, can provide assistance as needed,” Essek replies with a shrug. “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to tell you what it was, explain how it works.”

“It’s fine, Essek,” says Caleb, and Essek would give more than he cares to admit to hear Caleb say his name with such care and delicacy every day until they must part again. “I figured it out pretty quickly, when I felt the healing. That saved my life.”

“It was nothing.”

“ _Essek_. It was not nothing. It was _everything_.”

It hurts to hold Caleb’s gaze, to hear the caring in his voice when he doesn’t know what it means, but he can’t look away.

“It was the least—”

“Stop.”

Essek stops, teeth clicking together as Caleb’s face twists into confusion and then realisation.

“ _Nein_ — _verdammt_ , no, I mean, stop making it out that it wasn’t important. I know what that would have cost you, to have felt… every hurt I did for an hour and enduring healing after healing to make sure _I_ would be still standing here at the end of it,” Caleb finishes in a rush, hand shifting from Essek’s hair down to cradle his cheek, and he can’t help but lean into it slightly. “No, I meant that I understand, I _understand_ what that cost.”

“I would do it again, in a heartbeat.”

“ _Essek_.”

“ _Caleb_.”

They stand there, still cradling each other, neither willing to let go. He isn’t sure who moves first, isn’t sure if Caleb saw in his eyes what he saw in Caleb’s. But, without thinking, they both move at the same time and their mouths crash into each other, hands pulling each other impossibly closer.

It’s messy, and unrefined, but it’s raw, and it means something.

Teeth clack, and Caleb hisses slightly as Essek accidentally catches his lip on the tip of his lower fang. He draws back to apologise, but gets nowhere before Caleb crashes into him again. Essek’s hands move, shifting Caleb’s shirt until his fingers brush against skin. He’s rewarded with Caleb gasping into his mouth, pressing closer still. Want and longing pour from Essek, as thoughts he had kept contained for months are released. Hands shift, and Essek pulls at the tie holding Caleb’s hair back and knots his hands in the loosened strands. Caleb cradles his face, fingertips brushing his ears and causing Essek to moan in a way that he would be embarrassed about with anyone else.

He understands now, he thinks, the fire he sees when Quana and Leylas look at each other. The energy that connects them, that they have chosen again and again across multiple lifetimes. He understands, and regrets, that this is the only lifetime he has, and that Caleb’s time is but a speck to his. He understands now, what he has been missing, how precious it is, and how quickly it can be taken away.

They draw back, but Caleb doesn’t let him get away, instead resting his forehead against Essek’s, their breath mingling between them. Essek can see every freckle across Caleb’s nose, can see the brilliant blue of his eyes, and he’s surprised to learn there’s a faint amber ring around the centre. He wants to memorise this, wants to imprint it on his brain to keep him company when he has to go back home.

He realises his own eyes have slipped closed when he hears a chuckle from Caleb, and feels lips pressed gently to his eyelids.

“Hello.”

And it’s barely a word, more a huff of breath, but he knows Caleb heard him when the arm around his waist tightens again.

“ _Hallo, Liebling_ ,” Caleb replies, and he’s smiling as he steps back, his hands sliding down to hold Essek’s. He raises them to his lips and kisses them gently.

It’s then that Essek realises he can hear the crackling of the fire, can see the Candles of Rexxentrum out the window behind Caleb’s back. There is a Dwendalian Empire hanging on one wall, and a Cerberus Assembly one on the other. He takes this all in, and takes in Caleb’s clothes.

“You were successful?”

Caleb nods, and looks down, swallowing. When Caleb looks up again, Essek can see the haunted look in Caleb’s eyes, even as a weight seems to have lifted from his shoulders.

“The Nein?”

“All safe. Jester is still out. She took a beating and had to be resurrected.” Essek’s stomach drops and he tightens his grip on Caleb’s hands. “It’s okay, Caduceus was around, and the Traveller wasn’t willing to let go of her that quickly. She will be fine.”

“How many are left?”

“Oremid Hass is the only one,” replies Caleb. “He is in Zadash, under orders to stay.”

Essek flicks through his mental list. Ikithon, Da’leth, Iresor, Tversky, Uludan, DeRogna, Marolin. The Nein took on seven archmages of the Cerberus Assembly and lived to tell the tale.

“ _How_.” It comes out as a demand, more than a question.

“We had help from a few allies, and some on the inside that were convinced to see the wisdom of our cause.”

“The Empire?”

At this, Caleb winces slightly and looks away. “I… Uludan was with the royal family, holding them hostage when we arrived. I… mis-timed it. The King is dead.”

Essek blinks. _The King is dead_. This… this changes things, destabilizes the region, and the Queen must know immediately, if she doesn’t already. He catches sight of the look on Caleb’s face, a mix of resignation and regret, and Essek puts his duty aside. Puts it aside and decides that right now, it isn’t important. He is here for Caleb, and for the Nein.

“You can tell me about it later,” he says instead, and he watches the tension drain out of Caleb and a look of relief replaces it on his face. He squeezes the fingers still in his grasp, a silent show of support.

“Can you stay?” Caleb asks softly, and Essek’s heart breaks all over again.

“I… I actually can’t leave,” he says, heat flaring in his cheeks. “The teleport here was my last one.”

Caleb chuckles, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “The others will want to say hi, I’m sure, but you might have to wear that disguise for a little while longer. There’s some that won’t take kindly to seeing a drow walk these halls. Not so soon.”

“I understand.”

He goes to raise his hand, and is stopped before he can start drawing the glyphs by Caleb. 

“ _Thank you_ , Essek,” says Caleb, and there’s something there in his eyes, something he suspects only he is allowed to see.

“I told you once before, I have far more allegiance to you than I do to the Dynasty. You, above anyone, Caleb,” he replies. He knows the same something must be showing in his eyes, a mirror to Caleb still.

While there are conversations still to come, of the past and the future, Essek knows that they will come in due time. He raises his hand, this time completing the casting, and the visage of Thane once again cloaks him. As they leave the room, Caleb leans in close to him and whispers, low enough that the escort walking behind them can’t hear. “Say, has anyone tried that spell while occupied with... _other_ activities?”

Essek trips and goes sprawling, and blesses the disguise that doesn’t betray the heat flaring across his cheeks.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> As always, you can catch me screaming about the wizards over on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/KmacKatie) or the ETFC Discord.


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